Thursday, 28th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

Not all that glitters on Instagram…

By Sinem Bilen-Onabanjo
06 August 2016   |   1:38 am
Hands up, I admit. I am that annoying friend who, when the food arrives, slaps any hasty hands away from the plate and hushes down chatter. Next, out comes the smartphone followed by a good five minutes spent finding the perfect angle, the perfect lighting, the best crop to make sure no stray hands...

not-1

Hands up, I admit. I am that annoying friend who, when the food arrives, slaps any hasty hands away from the plate and hushes down chatter. Next, out comes the smartphone followed by a good five minutes spent finding the perfect angle, the perfect lighting, the best crop to make sure no stray hands are taking the frame from sublime to mundane and off goes the camera snapping away. It doesn’t end there either, once fellow diners get the green light to dig in, there I am framing my masterpiece, selecting the right filter and finding the most suitable hashtags to tag it with when

I send my post into the big wild world of social media. Only then, I can sit back, relax and enjoy my lukewarm meal. We all know that one person, don’t we? If you don’t, the chances are you are that person! Swedish furniture giant IKEA released a new commercial a couple of days ago which mocks exactly this type of social media addicts. A bourgeoisie family is ready to sit down for a feast before a painter arrives to immortalise the scene in still life. That’s not all though, the painting is then paraded around for miles for the much desired thumbs up before the family can finally dine. The 18th century version, if you like, of today’s incessant validation seeking.

“Relax!” IKEA reminds us, “It’s a meal, not a competition.”Sadly in the ever evolving age of social media – Instagram unveiled its Snapchat carbon copy Instagram Stories earlier this week for those who are not content unleashing their world of wonders on a handful of Snapchat followers but must also show us Instagrammers how life is in the fab lane – everything is a competition.

We are all trying to keep up with the Joneses – whoever they may be – only social media has made it a tad bit easier. You no longer need to splurge on a Range Rover, just strategically positioning yourself by the neighbour’s car every now and again should do the trick. More on a Primark than Prada budget? Never you mind. There is always a rent-a-handbag service you can make use of.

In my days of clubbing in London, I recall my Jamaican flatmate, hardened by heartaches and disappointments, dismissing Nigerian men with the warning, “Watch out for them Igbo boys; they will be driving Mercs and Beamers to the club but they don’t have chairs to sit on at home.” Now it is no longer the odd Friday night out you can flash the cash and drive a borrowed luxury car, keeping up appearances while wondering where the next meal is coming from. Social media has made the game of smoke and mirrors much easier and that much more relentless. And such, the make-believe curated feeds go on and on.

Remember Australian teenager Essena O’Neill with more than 612,000 Instagram followers who radically rewrote her ‘self-promoting’ history on social media before quitting Instagram? She deleted 2000+ images and reedited the captions of the remaining. One such was an image of her in a bikini once captioned, “Things are getting pretty wild at my house. Maths B and English in the sun.” She edited it as: “See how relatable my captions were – stomach sucked in, strategic pose, pushed up boobs. I just want younger girls to know this isn’t candid life, or cool or inspirational. It’s contrived perfection made to get attention.”

In her vlog, O’Neill said, “This was the reason why I quit social media: for me, personally, it consumed me. I wasn’t living in a 3D world.” And this is what many of us miss, in this make-believe world of perfection made up of yachts on cerulean waters, avocado on toast #foodporn, fabulous flat lays and boobs, thighs, bums flawlessly honed (or retouched on Facetune), all is not what it seems. It is all about carefully curated, painstakingly contrived frames in 2D. Not real life.

Remember when all we had was Facebook and the good old FOMO (fear of missing out) often induced the morning after the crazy night you opted out of only to find a hundred pictures of your friends having a ball? As Facebook has given way to Instagram, FOMO, it seems, has ushered in something so much worse: ILE (My new coinage: Instagram Life Envy). Like O’Neill, we are all so consumed by the illusion that we get life envy for lives we only see the retouched fragments of.

Have you ever pored over the Instagram post of a friend who looks super toned and tanned on the beach in Mauritius and felt momentarily jealous? Or felt a pang of envy at the image of a frenemy showing off her new Chanel handbag?

Have you ever uploaded a selfie and deleted it because it never reached 10 likes, or gone through your feed to delete images so you achieve the perfect post to follower ratio? A few weeks ago, I spent an evening in the company of great friends, incidentally that was the evening I put my phone down for longer than two hours. No Snapchat, no Facebook, no Instagram. Not even a single #foodporn post, would you believe it? That was the night I had the most fun in such a long time. And guess what, when someone uploaded the pictures on Facebook the next day, I had no reason for FOMO or ILE as I was there, having a great time. No filter, no Facetune, just the messy uncurated fun that was had.

I often remind myself that my life with the messy bits is so much more beautiful than the edited version with the carefully curated snaps on my Instagram feed, but every now and again that Chanel handbag or that Mauritian beach makes an appearance and I get consumed with ILE. Then I take a deep breath, remind myself not all that glitters on Instagram is gold and the social media Joneses may just be standing on a chair to get the perfect bird’s eye view of avocado on toast or tapping furiously on Facetune to give themselves the perfect curves. “Relax!” I say, “It’s not a competition.”

0 Comments